Cut Crease Tutorial

So what is a cut crease?

Until about a year ago I did not have a clue what a cut crease was let alone being able to do one. Being the eyeshadow addict that I am as soon as I saw people on Facebook groups trying to do them I knew I had to jump in and have a go. Quite simply a cut crease is where you have a smoked out the crease of your eye, usually with a darker colour, and then you cut the crease with concealer to create a lighter lid area and a defined line where the crease is. You then add a light shade to the lid, a cream, champagne, gold or even a metallic so that the two colours contrast and stand out.

They take practice

As with any skill, makeup is a skill that can be learned and practiced, doing a good cut crease can take time, effort and practice. I used to hate doing them because I never got them quite right, as hard as I would try I just could not master it like I could do the smoky gradient look that I use most of the time. But, as with everything in life, practice makes perfect and after hours of practice I feel like I have finally made progress with the trusty cut crease. So please, keep practicing and do not give up hope, anyone can achieve with a little elbow grease.

The tools of the trade

Many YouTube videos and tutorials will lead you to believe that you need tons of different brushes to do a cut crease; in actual fact you could do it with just one eyeshadow blending brush and a concealer brush. I actually used four brushes because I have far too many:

A larger fluffy blending brush
A smaller fluffy crease brush or tapered eyeshadow blending brush.
A pencil brush
An angled eyebrow brush (for the concealer, you could use a small concealer brush)

And then just follow these steps.
1) Prime your eyes to lay a good foundation; I used the Essence 2 in 1 eyeshadow primer and placed it all over my lid
2) I then set the primer with some pale cream, matte eyeshadow; here I actually used pressed powder from my Freedom Pro Strobe palette and I am using it up for ‘Project Pan’
3) Then take your transition colour and with a larger fluffy brush sweep it above the crease in windscreen wiper motions; it is best to try and hold the end of the brush to avoid a harsh application/ too much pressure.
4) Then take a crease brush or a tapered eyeshadow blending brush and take the next colour (always go from lightest to darkest with blending) and do the same action just slightly lower then where the transition shade ends, in the crease (or slightly above if you have hooded eyes). Keep adding little ad often and tap your makeup brush to remove any excess that could add too much shadow too soon.
5) Take the larger blending brush without any product and buff over above your crease to blend the to shades together.
6) Then take a pencil brush with the darker colour and concentrate the colour as near to the crease line as you can, then take the crease brush from step 4 and use that to blend the darker shade into the medium one. If you want you can add more of the medium shade if you have lost some of its colour or if you have added too much of the darker shade and want to tone it down.
7) If you like you can add a fourth ‘darkest’ colour (can be a very dark variant of the shades you are using or a black) use the pencil brush to add the tiniest bit of it to the crease line, then blend over with the crease brush, this will add more depth but is not a necessity.
8) To cut the crease you will need either concealer or a white jumbo crayon like I used (I use the Nyx jumbo pencil in Milk), you will need a concealer brush or an angled brush, anything that you can get a neat line with. Apply the concealer to the lid area and gradually bring it towards the crease. Draw a neat line where the crease is and then fill in the lid area.
9) Apply the lightest eyeshadow (shimmer, glitter and metallic shadows work well here) to the lid area using either a flat eyeshadow brush or a clean finger (I find it packs more shadow on like this).
10) If you need to take the pencil brush and run it over the crease line to deepen the contrast or neaten the line, add eyeliner and mascara as desired.
I have even included a handy video for you to watch what I am talking about, hope you like it.
If you are struggling to see the video, you can also find it on my Facebook page at Life with Mrs T

That’s my cut crease tutorial; remember it takes practice but once you get used to the blending and applying the concealer neatly then it is well worth it. I love doing a cut crease to change things up in my makeup once in a while. Let me know if you would like anymore tutorials in the comments.

Wow, you look gorgeous! I can NEVER get the cut crease look right. I always get stuck when it comes to the blending step. You make it seem really simple – I’m definitely going to try it one more time. Thanks for the detailed tutorial!